By By CLAIRE BICKLEY --

Yesterday afternoon, CFTO straight white male posterguy Dave Devall advised viewers that the coming-out episode of Ellen "will open your eyes and hearts."

Go figure. And good for him.

But Devall's promo was a lot more optimistic and accepting than what followed during Ellen DeGeneres' appearance on Oprah, which CFTO broadcasts locally.

Audience members chastized Oprah Winfrey for guest-starring in the Ellen episode and attacked sitcom star DeGeneres both for being a lesbian and for making it public.

Winfrey said she'd also been deluged with mail opposed to her appearance on the sitcom.

"A lot of people said me being on your show ... was me promoting lesbianism," Winfrey told DeGeneres. "I simply wanted to support you in being what you believe was the truth for yourself."

The audience had watched the Ellen episode before DeGeneres strode onto the Oprah stage to the sound of the Diana Ross song I'm Coming Out.

Looking nervous and tired, DeGeneres worried to Winfrey, "Everybody thinks I'm a freak," but nonetheless held her own.

Audience member Donna enclosed a photo of her husband and children with her disapproving letter to Winfrey.

"There's the lesbian wedding on Friends. There's the lesbian kiss on Relativity. I just found out there's a lesbian relationship on NYPD Blue, and now yours. I just feel like we're being stuffed with this right down our throat. Why? Why?" Donna asked.

"Because you don't have to fight for anyone to embrace you and say how wonderful, you have a family and children. It's just accepted," replied DeGeneres.

Donna said she didn't appreciate her 10-year-old son seeing DeGeneres on the cover of Time magazine with the headline, "Yup, I'm gay."

"Do you want to know I'm straight? I'm not on the cover saying, 'Yup, I'm straight.' No one has to know. No one cares," Donna said.

"Actually," DeGeneres quipped, "Time has been trying to get in touch with you."

At one point, DeGeneres jokingly pretended she was going to walk off stage. Who could blame her?

Another woman in the audience backed down from her accusation that Ellen is "flaunting sex," grudgingly conceding that the episode was in good taste and no sex was depicted.

Another, Tom, based his objections on the Bible.

"God says it's wrong. It's sin. It's no different from adultery. It's no different than robbin', lyin', cheatin'," he said, drawing a smattering of applause.

"I don't think you're a freak. I think you're a very nice person. I just think you are living in a lifestyle that is wrong."

The closest anybody in the studio came to backing DeGeneres was a man who turned the biblical argument back on Tom, telling him that since everyone is a sinner, no one should cast stones at others. If others had more supportive feelings, they went unsaid.

It's understandable that Winfrey would want to give DeGeneres maximum time, especially since girlfriend Anne Heche joined her for the show's last few minutes -- a TV first. But, by giving her own audience such short shrift, Winfrey may have left millions of viewers with just the impression -- that homosexuality is wrong and everybody thinks so -- that she'd been opposing by being on Ellen in the first place.

Considering Oprah's reach and influence, it seems like an opportunity lost.